Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Linguine with Lemon-Garlic Shrimp

I’ve
yet to find a recipe that comes close to the Shrimp Scampi that I grew up with.
It was a dish that was so resolutely garlic-y, you could smell it coming up the
driveway.Later, when I lived in Italy,
I found out how off that name is.Scampi is a shellfish, a langoustine more
formally known as Nephrops Norvegicus, or Norway Lobster found in the North Atlantic and parts
of the Mediterranean.In both taste and
texture it has more in common with lobster and crayfish than shrimp or prawns.
And the pasta dish we loved at home didn’t contain any Nephrops Norvegicus.It was
made with jumbo shrimp, wine, and the aforementioned tons of garlic.So what’s with the Shrimp Scampi?It’s almost like calling a dish “Chicken
Poulet.”

Nephrops Norvegicus

“Scampi"
is often the menu name for shrimp in Italian-American cuisine. The actual
word for "shrimp" in Italian is gambero or gamberetto.
The term “Scampi” is used as the name of a dish of shrimp served
in garlic butter and dry white wine,
served either with bread, or over pasta or rice. The word "scampi" is
often construed as that style of preparation rather than an ingredient, with
that preparation being called "shrimp scampi", and with variants such
as "chicken scampi".

Now
this recipe for Linguine with Lemon-Garlic Shrimp comes from Fine Cooking. It's one of their series of really simple and fast dinner recipes. Its name wisely eliminates the redundancy of “Shrimp
Scampi”.However it gets very close to
what I loved as a child.It’s deeply perfumed
with garlic and lemon.Then there’s an
addition that flies in the face of the Italian edict: Never add cheese to
seafood of any kind. In this case, Marscapone, that luxurious Italian cream
cheese is added at the end to give the sauce a creamy richness.Somewhat bizarrely the original recipe is for
three people.I made it for two by
cutting down on the number of shrimp.I
would however caution against cutting the amount of sauce down.And this is one time when you really do need
to add a little of the paste water to get your sauce to the perfect
consistency.Here is the recipe:

Bring a large pot of well-salted water
to a boil over high heat. Cook the linguine in the boiling water according to
package directions until al dente. Reserve about 3/4 cup of the cooking water
and then drain the pasta.

Meanwhile, finely grate 1-1/4 tsp. of zest from the lemon and squeeze 2 Tbs. of
juice. Toss the shrimp with 1/2 tsp. of the zest and 1/4 tsp. each salt and
pepper.

In a 12-inch skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat until the foam
subsides. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic just
begins to brown, about 1 minute. Add the shrimp and cook until just opaque,
about 3 minutes. Add the wine and lemon juice, bring to a boil, and cook until
slightly reduced, 1 minute.

Add the drained pasta, mascarpone, and 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Toss well,
adding more cooking water as needed, until the pasta and shrimp are coated and
the sauce looks creamy. Remove from the heat. Toss in the remaining 3/4 tsp.
lemon zest and the chives. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.